FRIDAY short TAKES.

This has not been a good week for regular order, but so things go when you're in the grim strategy equilibrium.  "In its desire to create a one-party state, the Democratic Party is willing to turn the country into a banana republic."  The perception of Democrat tyranny spreads.  "Their two-fold objective with the legal system is (1) to dismantle it as the undergirding of what progressives regard as a racist, exploitative society and (2) to control it as a punitive weapon against political enemies."  In the grim strategy equilibrium, though, punishment begets punishment.  "We do live in a country where you jail your political enemies and use the law to squash your opponents’ ability to compete. And we will live in such a country right up until the moment that us doing it to them causes them so much pain that they beg us to change the rules back again."  Call it demonizing dissent.  "The self-righteous authors assume that everyone would share their democratic-socialist worldview (which they declare to be 'the truth') in the absence of cupidity or deceit. Good faith disagreement is not possible."  Now square that with postmodern skepticism about truth itself.

The good news is even some notional Democrats see clearly.  "If you don’t do exactly what Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you, they will try to cast you aside." Plus "They have pushed me out."  Can we find a way to reject the false binary?  “The vast majority of people in America are not happy with the direction of the country and they don’t want to see either Joe Biden or Donald Trump as president.”  Once order collapses, it is extraordinarily difficult to restore.  Sometimes the only way out is through.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Collective delusions.  "The emphasis on faux community is obviously a function of identity politics."  Or is it the return of religious zealotry?  "Race-centrism has become the modern equivalent of Catholic dogma, once a requirement at church-run colleges."

2.  It’s the smugness that is so grating.  Plus:  "The sad truth is that coastal progressive condescension toward workers has become second nature to many Democrats, so much so that they don’t realize they’re doing it."

3.  Climate, corona, traffic.  "Projections can severely limit our thinking about what the future could look like, by imposing a powerful status-quo bias."

4.  Residually inhabited by moochers?  "Like Detroit, I suspect Minneapolis and Saint Paul are about to find out what happens when the productive class hits the exits."  Also, like Detroit?  "What happens to Chicago if Michigan Avenue becomes known as the Murderous Mile?"

5.  Earth Day is coming.  "Environmentalists frequently come off as screechy lunatics looking for a fight."  Or starving people?  "The privation is intended to be permanent."

6.  The presidency is a cult.  "Even if you’re a diehard supporter of Donald Trump, you can’t seriously liken him to Jesus."

7.  Ouch.  "New GOP motto: Unable to learn from the third kick of a mule."

8.  Oppression Olympics?  "[Diversity programming] is derailed when activists say men who want to be women are equal to women and allow those men access to women’s hard-earned rights."

9.  Is anyone surprised?  "[Biden's spending] is now threatening to go the way of California’s High Speed Rail project, a progressive dream that received its first big checks 14 years ago, and yet which has yet to produce a single mile of usable train line."

10.  Experience is a stern teacher.  "By the time of the woke military’s catastrophically mishandled withdrawal from Afghanistan, the American people knew what they were getting from Old Joe: socialism, stagnation, open borders, rising crime, skyrocketing inflation, and relentless, repeated efforts to circumvent and destroy the First Amendment and criminalize political dissent in the country formerly known as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."

11.  Genau.  "The United States of the Clintons and Epsteins, of Soros, Biden and Zuckerberg, is not our friend."

12.  Amtrak gotta Amtrak.  "That lady needs to find another job."

13.  Compensating differentials and incompletely competing cohorts.  "There has never been a time where violinists—let alone in Tulsa—made more money than welders. Nor a time when people so passionate about violin that they would pursue an MFA in the field would have rather been welders."

14.  There are limits.  "That’s the problem for the left – there’s always some mutant going too far because of the incentive system that rewards too far."

15.  We're not thugs.  The aftermath?  "This is woke-on-woke violence of the highest degree, and it’s the inevitable result of feeding into the purposeful racialization of the country."

16.  Disconnected, disinterested, dissolute?  "A Pentagon study revealed that 77 percent of young Americans do not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, drug use, or mental or physical problems."

17.  It's malted battery acid.  From a run-down battery?